West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra on Saturday said the State has successfully tackled the problem of Maoist insurgency and that not a single civilian death has been reported so far this year from the left wing extremism affected districts. The three districts of West Midnapore, Purulia and some areas of Bankura, have been affected by such extremism. These are loosely called Junglemahal.
“A year before we came to power (2010) there were 143 civilian deaths (by Maoists) reported from different areas of Junglemahal. This came down to 12 last year. So far this year, there has been no incidents of civilian killings by the Maoists,” Mitra said during a seminar at the PanIIT, a global conference of IIT alumni.